The Value of Time

Today was Jessie's original due date!  If she had been born closer to her due date, she would just now be turning 18 and be in the first weeks of her Senior year.  Instead she has already graduated from high school.  It is crazy the difference that six little weeks can make.

I remember reading this poem right after Jessie was born.

To realize the value of ONE YEAR,
ask a student who failed a grade.

To realize the value of ONE MONTH,
ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.

To realize the value of ONE WEEK,
ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realize the value of ONE DAY,
ask the person who was born on February 29th.

To realize the value of ONE HOUR,
ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.

To realize the value of ONE MINUTE,
ask a person who missed the train.

To realize the value of ONE SECOND,
ask a person who just avoided an accident.

To realize the value of ONE MILLISECOND,
ask the person who won a silver medal in the Olympics.

Treasure every moment that you have! And treasure it more
because you shared it with someone special, special enough to
spend your time. And remember that time waits for no one.

Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is mystery.
Today is a gift.
That's why it's called the present

Friends are a very rare jewel, indeed. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed.
They lend an ear, they share a word of praise, and they always want to open their heart to us.
Show your friends how much you care.....

Anonymous

Sassy Grandma's

Today would have been my Grandma's 94th birthday!

I think she was pretty special...

And, I think the world needs more sassy Grandma's wearing leggings!

If you have a sassy Grandma, make sure you give her a big hug... very soon.

The Case of the Mysterious Hives

Last Wednesday, while I was at work, I started breaking out in hives.  Man, I never realized how itchy hives are.  I went to the Minute Clinic at Walgreens and got myself some steroid cream and spent the evening in bed.

What I was feeling Wednesday was nothing compared to what was in store for me.  I woke up at 4:00 a.m. on Thursday very miserable.  I was nauseous and uncomfortable, so I thought that I would make a trip to the bathroom.  As I got up to start the bathroom, I was feeling super sick and could hardly stand up.  Everything seemed black around me.  My brain was too numb to ask for help.  So, I just kept shuffling to the bathroom.  The next thing I remember was feeling the hard floor.  Fred was a rock star.  He found me wedged between the wall and the toilet.  I would really rather not know that was where he found me.  He stood me up and helped me get back to bed.  After he got Jonathan to church at 6:00 a.m., we paid a little visit to the ER.  My eyes and mouth were a little swollen.  You can see in the picture above.  I was treated for the swelling and the hives all over my body with an epinephrine shot and a steroid.  I was sent on my merry way.  I was certainly relieved to be feeling better and thankful that I would be back at work the next day.

Thursday night, I went to bed feeling itchy and uncomfortable.  Once again, Friday morning at 4:00 a.m. I woke up miserable and nauseous.  I didn't pass out this time!  However, I could never post the pictures, because I was a mess.  I had hives all over my face and every part of it was swollen.  Once again, Fred took me to the ER at 6:00 a.m.  Again, I received a shot of epinephrine.  This time I received an IV with all sorts of goodness in it.  They gave me a stronger steroid and referred me to an Allergist.

Again, Saturday morning brought more swelling and I was so uncomfortable, but I am happy to report that by Saturday afternoon that the steroids had kicked in!  Thank goodness.  

I took my last steroid last night.  Now, we wait and see if I break out.  The doctor has me on four Zyrtec a day, which I haven't been brave enough to take.  I have an Epipen, if I need it. So, we're all geared up if it gets ugly again.  I'm going with positive thinking!  It was a crazy fluke and we'll just never know what happened!

In the meantime, I just sit around scratching and it makes me wonder.  Do I really itch or is it all in my head?

Greetings from Texas

What do you do when your co-worker takes a 2-week trip to China?  Send her an awesome email letting her know that the team misses her!

Getting Up With the Chickens

Now that Jonathan is in high school, he attends early morning seminary at church.  Seminary is a gospel study program and is held Monday through Friday at 6:00 a.m.  We get up with the chickens every morning and we are all tired.  Jonathan is working hard all day long with seminary, band practice and school.  His days are long.  Things like this beautiful moon are the things you get to see when you get up early like we do!

Missionary Moment

We had our missionaries over for dinner on Sunday night.  Once a month we fast. (So, after dinner on Saturday night we did not again until we served dinner at 5:00ish on Sunday.)  I guess we've never had the Elders over for dinner on a Fast Sunday.  Fred asked them what they were in the mood for and they asked for breakfast for dinner.  This goes against everything Jonathan believes in.  He believes you only eat breakfast for breakfast!  We served waffles, bacon, eggs and chocolate milk.  Oh. my. goodness.  I have never seen so much food put away in my life.  Those boys were hungry.  We all were, but they were REALLY hungry.  We drank almost an entire gallon of chocolate milk!  Side note:  Jonathan heated up left overs, because he couldn't bring himself to eat a waffle for dinner!

After dinner, my kids talked Elder Wells and Elder Stufflebeam into playing games with them.  I don't think they had to try too hard.  Elder Wells was really excited to play Yahtzee.  He proclaimed that he was going to take us all down and that is what he proceeded to do.  The kids had a blast!  We are so fortunate to have such great missionaries serving in our Ward!

New World

You are probably going to see a ton of band posts this year, because that is what our world revolves around right now.  Our first home game was Thursday.  Thank goodness we only have one Thursday night game.  Our tails were dragging on Friday morning at 5:30 a.m. when Jonathan had to get ready for seminary.

Our Knights played well against Ft. Worth Castleberry and won 35-8!  The band performed their New World routine and I was proud of Jonathan.  He looks so much better holding his sousaphone.  I have a hard time watching him though. I get nervous.

The band and the Royals Drill Team

Performing "The New World" drill

Look at that... my two favorite instruments... Sousaphones and clarinets in one shot!

Working hard to please the crowd

Everyone needs a pair of purple vans to show their Knight spirit!

Meet Nimrod

Meet Nimrod.  Here he is lying on Jessie's bed while she sleeps.  I was walking back and forth between Jonathan's room and the living room.  And, he was just staring at me with his creepy eyes.  He is a creepy, weird cat.  Bless his little heart.

Jess was supposed to be "fostering" him.  Every time we talked about how he wasn't working out.  She would talk to his original owner and she would push for Jess to try just a little harder.  Before I knew it, this arrangement became more permanent.  It seems that no one was looking for Nimrod a permanent home.  And, there is a reason that he is called Nimrod.  He is not sharpest tool in the shed.   (I'm not sure if they named him after the Nimrod in the scriptures or the way that we currently use the word. But, my money is on the current definition of the word.)

There is also a reason why I am not fond of males (animals, that is).  I guess he can still smell our Princess, so he has proceeded to "mark" his territory.  Nothing smells worse than cat urine.  Most of his marking has been in Jessie's room where Princess spent most of her time.

I guess I'll never get that dog I really wanted... now that we are keeping Nimrod!  I love that Jonathan calls him Nimmie. Because, who names a cat Nimrod, after all.

Labor Day - Laboring in Jonathan's Room

So, my daughter is what I like to call a hoarder.  On this matter, we do not agree.  However, we both agree that she does not like to keep her room clean.  The act of cleaning overwhelms her.  She starts cleaning with the best of intentions and then it gets the best of her.  She would happily let me clean her room for her.  And, I end up helping her with this task, often.

However, I leave Jonathan alone.  As long as his room is reasonably clean, I don't say anything.  Jonathan is very much like Fred.  He believes that he his organized.  He has what I like to call "crap piles" (pardon my language) everywhere.  I couldn't take it anymore and decided to spend some time on Labor Day helping Jonathan organize his room.  He just about blew a gasket.  He couldn't take it.  He lost his mind and asked me, "Are you COD or something?"  COD?  I'm thinking he meant OCD.

We ended up doing very little to his room, because he likes his piles just the way they are!  Everything has a place and a purpose and he was going to lose his mind if I rearranged it.  At least you can walk in his room.  I have to intervene with Jess, because nothing has a place or a purpose in her room!

My favorite thing about Jonathan's room is this rack that hangs over his door!  He hangs his ties on it.  It makes me laugh that he keeps them tied.  I've gone in there and untied them all and you would have thought I had done something really terrible.  I also have to lay out a tie for him every Sunday or he will pick one tie and where it EVERY SINGLE WEEK!  I kid you not!  (His dad is the same way, so he comes by it honestly.)

So, after all that, I'm thinking that Jonathan is the OCD one!

What's Cookin' - Simple Sausage Casserole

I haven't done this in awhile, but here is a crazy simple breakfast recipe that I tried out on Monday.  Fred and I weren't super crazy about it.  Fred thought it wasn't a stand alone meal.  It needed eggs or something with it.  I thought it was good, but the cream cheese made it a little too zippy.  Jonathan was over the moon for it.  He had two helpings on Monday and then he has been eating up the leftovers.  It is going to be one of his favorites that I will have to make often. 

Simple Sausage Casserole

Ingredients

1 pound pork sausage
8 ounce cream cheese, softened
2 (8 ounce) cans refrigerated crescent rolls

Directions

1. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease the bottom of a 9x11 inch baking dish.
2. Cook the sausage in a skillet over medium heat until crumbly and beginning to brown; drain. Stir the cream cheese into the cooked sausage.
3. Roll the dough from one can of crescent rolls into the bottom of the prepared baking dish without separating. Bake in the preheated oven for 5 minutes. Spread the sausage mixture over the baked crescent rolls; top the sausage mixture with the remaining can of rolls. Return to oven and bake until the top layer is golden brown, about 8 minutes.

The Best Game Ever

Jonathan loved to play Sequence for Kids when he was little.  He played it for hours.  Sometimes I enjoyed playing it and sometimes it drove me nuts.  We were at MaMaw and Grady's on Sunday and Lainey told her mom that she had been good.  She wanted to know, "Now what?"  Her mom told her that she needed to continue to be good.  Clearly she was a little bored.  She and I had read a book and we had all told silly jokes.  So, I brought out Jonathan's favorite game.  Well, let me tell you what!  The game may say for kids ages 3-8, but it is still Jonathan's favorite game.  We were about 10 minutes late for a church meeting, because Jonathan couldn't stop playing.  Seriously?

First Football Game Ever!

Jonathan played in his first football game ever on Friday.  We had a great time.  They played the Princeton Panthers.  Admittedly, their football team and band was a lot better.  But, let's face it we just got started!

Even though the game was painful to watch, we had so much fun.  Since the game was in Princeton, MaMaw and Grady came out to watch Jonathan and we sat next to our friends, the Gschwends.

I can't wait to wear my Independence purple every Friday!